Thanks For The Memories
by SilverHeart09
Summary: Who is 'Natasha' and why was she left abandoned in a hospital? Unfortunately where a certain God of Mischief is concerned anything's possible. Or is it? It's up to Tony, Clint and the God of Thunder to save the day.
1. Chapter 1

_I had this idea when I was cleaning a bed yesterday. I know I should really update my other stories but had to write this down :) Enjoy! And don't worry, all will become clear._

_Please review!_

* * *

Charlotte yawned and ran her fingers through her hair. She hated long shifts, 14.5 hours of wiping patient's bums and being ordered around by the staff. Not that she had any false expectations of what nursing would be like when she started her training mind you, she was fully aware that the majority of patients would be elderly and the majority would be unable (or too lazy as the case often was) to wipe their own bums. No, the patients she could cope with, the patients she loved talking to, it was the nursing staff calling her names like 'little one' that really grated on her nerves. She was 19 for crying out loud! Legally an adult! How did that make her little?

Charlotte yawned again and tried to hide it behind her hand. She was stood by the nurses' station, hands behind her back, clearly using her body posture to show that she was available to help out and could someone please give her a job because she was bored. This was ridiculous, they were supposed to encourage her learning not leave her standing there doing nothing. Charlotte glanced at the clock. Four o'clock in the afternoon. She decided to use her initiative and check the obs on the coma patient in B side room, then she'd get the satisfaction of showing off to the staff that she was perfectly capable to mucking in with the rest of them. Which mainly included the health care assistants and nursing axillaries, as it was accepted that once you graduated to a staff nurse, you were 'too posh to wash'. Not Charlotte though, she was determined to show the world that nursing was focused on giving care to a person, not shoving it onto someone else below you, like the student nurses for example.

'Good afternoon!' Charlotte said merrily as she entered side room B. 'The weather is rubbish and there are no birds singing, however I have just submitted my last essay for this year so fingers crossed.'

Charlotte liked talking to the coma patient, who they'd nicknamed 'Florence' after Florence and the Machine on account of her flaming red hair. Normally the unidentified patients were referred to as 'Jane Doe,' but this lady was so obviously not the kind of person you'd call 'Jane,' the hair being an example of this.

Charlotte picked up the hairbrush someone had left there and brushed back Florence's short hair. 'There, much better,' she said. 'I'm just going to check your blood pressure and heart rate, you know the drill.'

Charlotte Velcro-ed the blood pressure cuff round the patient's arm and turned the machine on, popping the sats probe onto her finger and checking her temperature while the cuff inflated. Charlotte took Florence's folder from the end of her bed and started documenting in the results, talking to Florence as she did so. 'Heart rate 67, that's a bit low,' she told her. 'Though I guess you haven't been doing any exercise since you came in so I'm not expecting it to be racing.'

Florence had been admitted to the ward a month previously with a severe head injury, comatose on arrival. She'd had no identification on her and her clothes (a jacket, top, jeans and a pair of boots) had been removed and neatly folded up by Charlotte and placed in her locker. She'd then been dressed in a hospital gown and had been left in the side room till she woke up, with instructions for regular obs to be done on her.

'Blood pressure 109 over 80, also low,' Charlotte said frowning. 'But that's normal for you, you haven't been doing anything to get the blood pumping I guess.'

The door opened and Charlotte, head bent over the obs chart, called out 'I've already done it!'

'Done what?'

Charlotte looked up, surprised at the male voice, the majority of the staff were female apart from the one male HCA who did not have a voice like that.

The man stood in the doorway was wearing a suit and a doctor's coat, he was clean shaven and his hair was slicked back. He was also ridiculously attractive and looked kind of familiar. He raised an eyebrow at her, obviously expecting an answer.

'Oh, sorry,' Charlotte said. 'I thought you were one of the staff come to check her obs.'

The doctor (she guessed he was a doctor from the coat) nodded and turned his attention to Florence, and his entire face relaxed. He smiled softly and Charlotte frowned. She was very good at reading facial expressions and it was obvious the doctor was trying to conceal the fact that he was incredibly happy. Then he turned his attention back to her.

'I'm Dr Rogers, one of the F1's,' he said.

Charlotte nodded, F1 meaning he was a Foundation year 1 doctor, newly qualified which explained why she hadn't seen him around.

'It's nice to meet you Nurse…?'

'Fay, Charlotte Fay. And I'm one of the student nurses,' she explained, feeling pleased. Normally the doctors didn't give a flying monkeys as to who she was and just ignored her or barked instructions at her.

'Nice to meet you,' he said, nodding at her in acknowledgement. 'And in my experience, sometimes the student nurses' are better than the staff nurses, more empathy.'

Charlotte smiled, she thought exactly the same thing.

'I've been sent to check up on Miss Doe,' he said. 'Would you mind explaining her condition to me?'

Charlotte nodded and drew herself to her fall height, proud to be have been tasked with such an important job by a senior member of staff. She pulled her handover sheet from her pocket and placed it on Florence's folder, lifting it up to appear official.

'Of course, Doctor,' she said. 'This is Jane Doe, or 'Florence' as we refer to her because of the hair.'

Dr Rogers nodded understandingly.

'We were unable to track down identity or any family members but we have estimated her age to be around 25-30. She was admitted to the ward with a head injury and substantial blood loss, comatose on arrival. She had 3 units of blood via a blood transfusion since she's been here and her condition hasn't improved at all. I've just done her obs and her blood pressure and heart rate is both low, which has been continuous since she was admitted. She is on nasal specs and 3 litres of oxygen which has also been since arrival as her oxygen dropped below 80 when she was admitted,' Charlotte finished, feeling proud of herself and feeling like a proper nurse.

'Very informative,' Dr Rogers said, smiling at her. 'I'll make sure I tell the staff how professional you are.'

Charlotte beamed with pride and Dr Rogers crossed over to Florence, picking up her hand and consulting his watch, obviously trying to take her pulse, although Charlotte couldn't help noticing that his fingers weren't close enough to the radial artery to be able to find anything. But there wasn't a reason for him to pretend to take her pulse, surely?

'Hell on asha,' the doctor mumbled, so quietly that Charlotte almost didn't catch it. Charlotte frowned, what on earth did 'hell on asha' mean?

The doctor straightened up. 'I concur,' he informed her. 'Low pulse rate consistent with previous readings. Thank you for your time,' and he quickly left the room.

Charlotte stared after him, confused. How the hell did her know her pulse? He hadn't even taken it properly! Charlotte put her fingers where his had been, nope, couldn't feel anything. Even the doctors couldn't take pulses through sheer power of will. He must have been faking.

Then, as these things happen when the brain catches up with itself, Charlotte realised that he hadn't been saying 'hell on asha,' he had in fact been saying_ Hello Natasha._

Charlotte started at the patient. Did Doctor Rogers know her? Was he even a real doctor?

'… Natasha?' she said softly.

She wasn't sure if it was her imagination or the light in the room playing tricks in the early afternoon glow, but she could have sworn the patient's eyes flickered slightly.

* * *

Outside the hospital, the doctor pulled his coat off and shoved it into his car, pulling his phone out of his pocket.

'Clint? It's me,' Tony Stark said. 'I've found her.'


	2. Chapter 2

_The internet has gone down so for lack of anything else to do I wrote this :) If you're reading it you can safely assume that the internet has gone back up again and I've stopped running round my room at a loss because I can't go on Tumblr or Facebook._

_Enjoy! And please review :) Don't worry, all will become clear._

* * *

'How is she?' Clint demanded the second Tony arrived on the helicarrier.

Normally Tony would have said something sarcastic such as 'give me a sec to unscrew myself' but Natasha had been missing for a month and now she'd finally been found he wasn't going to leave her partner hanging there.

'She's in a coma, other than that she seems okay,' Tony said as the robotic arms slowly disassembled the Iron Man armour.

'Are you sure? I was listening in on the comm link, that nurse said she'd suffered a substantial head injury.'

'Which they'd obviously cured, apart from the coma part.' Tony frowned. 'Any news on the others?'

Clint shook his head. 'Steve and Bruce are still missing, Thor is still in Asgard, no news from Fury either.'

Tony sighed. 'Looks like it's up to us then shortround.'

'Why am I shortround? We're the same height!' Clint protested.

'Yeah but this is me you're talking to,' Tony said, raising an eyebrow at him.

Clint sighed and decided to agree to disagree, there wasn't enough room in the landing bay for the three of them: himself, Tony, and Tony's ego.

Tony finished being disassembled and they made their way down the corridors of the helicarrier, which was a lot like being on a ghost ship since there was only the two on them on it. Clint had been sure the ship would have failed after a few hours without its hundreds of SHIELD crew to maintain it, but he'd underestimated just how good Tony Stark was at his job. When the first alarm had sounded indicating a power failure Tony had been down there in a shot and had not only repaired the fault in under five minutes but had also installed JARVIS around the carrier to maintain the systems and repair the little things, leaving him and Clint to do the big job of tracking down their teammates and restoring balance to the universe.

They emerged onto the bridge and Tony slumped down onto one of the chairs at the briefing table, calling up the computer screen and checking if the global wide search they'd been using to track down their teammates had worked. Nothing, apart from the small dot indicating the hospital in Seattle where Natasha had been found.

'So, what's our next move, feathers?' Tony asked Clint, frowning at the computer screen.

'We need to think of a way to wake Natasha up,' Clint said, joining his teammate at the table.

'Then what? We have no way of knowing if she'd remember us when she wakes up.'

'We'll need to think of something, have you come anywhere close to a breakthrough on that gas?'

Tony nodded. 'It's a serum which was administered in a gas form via the air vents, which as you know are all over the carrier, hence why it was administered so quickly.'

'Do you know how they all managed to disappear simultaneously?' Clint asked.

'You mean the "beam me up, Scotty" thing?' Tony shrugged. 'The only explanation I have for that is magic, hence why we have our friendly neighbourhood Norse God up in Asgard right now checking up on our not so friendly neighbourhood Norse God.'

Clint frowned. 'You think it could have been Loki?'

'God of mischief and magic?' Tony shrugged. 'I thought it was him to start with but now I'm not so sure.'

'How come?' Clint asked. 'He's the only logical choice, unless some other supervillian on the planet has managed to come up with _Star Trek _technology.'

'Loki was on Asgard at the time,' Tony said. 'And Bruce and I did a global scan after the Chitauri incident, nothing indicating any Tesseract technology anywhere, so no-one was being controlled by him, unless of course it was his fangirl army.'

Clint grimaced. After the Chitauri incident there'd been a internet surge, mainly on some site called Tumblr, of a group calling themselves 'Proud Member of Loki's Army', they'd had badges and everything and 95% of them had been female. But that had mainly been focused on how apparently 'ridiculously sexy' Loki had been. Clint hadn't understood that and had been slightly worried that the youth of today were turned on by tall evil gods with a taste for leather and unwashed hair.

'I seriously hope they had nothing to do with it,' Clint said.

'I did a trace on all their IP addresses and cell phones,' Tony said. 'Nothing, so they're in the clear, for now anyway.'

Clint nodded, relieved. 'Any other theories, Sherlock?'

Tony grinned, obviously enjoying being called Sherlock. 'Well we can rule out Loki, considering he wasn't here, no-one was under his control and he didn't let himself get captured and deliver a soliloquy about how we were doomed and he was doing to win.'

Clint nodded. 'We'd better wait for Thor to get back from Asgard before we theorise, he'd probably be able to help us more, maybe there's another hell-bent Asgardian that hates our guts. What do we do about Natasha?'

Tony ran a finger over his chin, missing the goatee he had to shave off in order to make himself slightly less conspicuous. 'I think we should get that student nurse on our side,' he said, after a pause.

Clint raised an eyebrow at him. 'Are you nuts? We don't know her.'

'No we don't, but _she _knows _Natasha_. We could really do with an ally on our side,' Tony pointed out. 'Unless you have a plan to save her involving just the two of us.'

Clint sighed. 'Fine, how do we broach the subject?'

'I'll go back tomorrow and tell her, we need to do something fast.'

Clint nodded. 'Agreed,' he said. 'You do realise this will involve putting the tash off for a bit longer?'

Tony ran his hand over his clean shaven chin and sighed. 'Needs must when the devil farts in your face, dear Percy.'

'Quoting Blackadder won't achieve anything.'

'Makes me feel better though.'

'True.'

* * *

Charlotte hummed Maroon 5's _Moves Like Jagger _while she tightened the blood pressure cuff around Florence/Natasha's arm the next day. She'd started calling the patient 'Natasha' after the mysterious doctor had left yesterday but hadn't got the same reaction from her that he had.

'Afternoon, Nurse Fay,' a voice came from the doorway.

Charlotte's head snapped up, she'd been so absorbed in her task she hadn't heard the door open. The doctor from yesterday was stood there, still with a white coat on, a stethoscope around his neck and that familiar nudge at the back of her mind telling her she'd seen him somewhere before.

'Afternoon Doctor Rogers,' Charlotte said warily.

'How is she today?' he asked, looking down at Florence/Natasha with a concerned expression.

'She's the same as she's always been, in a coma, unresponsive,' Charlotte said, documenting her obs and removing the cuff.

'There's something delicate I need to discuss with you,' the doctor said, closing the door and turning his full intense gaze onto Charlotte. 'Something you must promise me you can keep to yourself, this is a nature of the utmost importance and cannot be shared with any members of staff.'

Charlotte frowned, shocked. 'I'm not sure I can promise something like that,' she said.

'I understand,' the doctor said. 'But I need your help with something, you know Natasha better than anyone on the ward.'

'So her name _is _Natasha?' Charlotte asked. 'I heard your "Hello Natasha" yesterday by the way.'

The doctor smiled. 'Yes, her name is Natasha and she is a friend of mine, and my… I'm not sure "co-worker" is the right word… She's my teammate.'

'Okay…' Charlotte said, not sure where this is going.

'My name is Tony Stark,' Tony (for of course it was him) said to her. 'CEO of Stark Industries and occasional super hero, you may have read about me in the papers after Loki nearly destroyed New York.'

Charlotte gaped at him, she could not believe she hadn't recognised him just because he didn't have his Tony Stark Tash©.

'I'm going to assume from your expression that you have heard of me,' Tony said, quickly checking that no-one was listening outside. 'This is Natasha Romanoff,' he continued, indicating the patient. 'Codename Black Widow. There was an… incident on the SHIELD helicarrier and she went missing. Myself and Agent Barton, you'd know him as "Hawkeye" have been trying to track her and the others for over a month.'

Charlotte swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. 'Others?' she asked in a cracked voice.

'Yes,' Tony said. 'The rest of the Avengers and a number of SHIELD personal have also gone missing.'

'How?' Charlotte asked.

Tony frowned. 'I'm not sure I can tell you that,' he said.

Charlotte crossed her arms and drew herself up to her full height. 'Mr Stark,' she said. 'You are asking me to keep a _massive _secret. I'm assuming that no-one else knows Natasha is here considering you're her first visitor in over a month. If I'm going to keep mum about this situation you need to tell me everything, from the beginning.'

Tony sighed and pulled out two seats from the corner of the room, indicating she should sit. 'You're worse than Pepper,' he said. 'Now do you have a few minutes to spare?'

Charlotte nodded and sat down opposite him.

'Good,' Tony said. 'Because this is going to take a while.'

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_Please review!_


	3. Chapter 3

_Sorry it's taken me so long to update! Please review and I'll update quicker, pinky promise :)_

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'That one looks like a balloon.'

'I can think of something ruder it also resembles.'

'Oh my god, Tony.'

'Clint?'

'He's right.'

'What is with you two?!'

Tony chuckled and opened another can of cola, accidentally-on-purpose getting Steve in the face with the spray.

Natasha rolled her eyes at the three men and adjusted her sunglasses. The four of them were lounging on the deck of the helicarrier while it was still in the water, soaking up the sun, a crate of cola between them. Thor was still in Asgard dealing with the whole my-brother-tried-to-take-over-the-world thing, and Bruce was in Harlem, spending the day with Betty Ross.

'_Agent Romanoff, report to the bridge,' _Nick Fury's voice chirped in her ear.

'On my way,' Natasha replied, pulling herself to her feet. 'Gentlemen,' she said, nodding at Tony, Steve and Clint.

The three of them nodded back at her. 'Natasha,' they said in unison.

**XxXxXxX**

Fury looked up as Natasha strolled in. 'Agent Romanoff,' he said. 'I need clarification on your report.'

'Of course,' Natasha said, sitting down at the briefing table.

'You said in your report that you found traces of an unknown substance.'

'A gas, yes sir,' Natasha clarified.

Fury frowned at her report. 'And you said that although the scanner picked up traces of this gas, you could not see any canisters of the substance?'

'That is correct,' Natasha said. 'I mentioned in my report that I thought whatever the gas was it was deemed to be so important that it was taken by AIM when they escaped the building. I asked Stark to try and analyse the data but he couldn't find anything.'

Steve wandered past them, looking a bit pink around the ears.

'Sunburnt, Captain?' Natasha teased.

'Maybe a bit,' Steve admitted. 'Stark and Barton are still out there, the rest of the deck is deserted, it's so hot out there, they must be nuts.'

Natasha smirked.

'Sir… I'm reading something, there's an unknown material in the air vents,' of the SHIELD drones said from his computer.

Fury pulled up the info on his screen. 'What kind of material?' he asked.

Natasha frowned. 'It has the same composition as the gas I found at the AIM labs,' she said.

Then, suddenly, green gas began pouring itself out of the air vents and surrounded the bridge. The agents were forced to their knees coughing. Natasha and Steve instinctively put their hands over the mouths and tried to not breath the gas in, but it replaced the oxygen in the room and found its way into their nostrils. The SHIELD crew and the two Avengers collapsed on the deck as everything suddenly went dark.

**XxXxXxX**

'Natasha's been gone ages,' Tony remarked, texting Pepper on his StarkPhone.

'Tasha, we will drink all the cola if you're not back soon,' Clint warned into his radio.

Nothing but static met his ears.

'Nat?' he said, frowning. 'Steve? Come in.'

Nothing.

Clint looked at Tony. 'Something's wrong,' he said. 'We need to get back onto the bridge.

The two of them ran across the empty flight deck and into the helicarrier. Tony paused. 'Where is everyone?' he asked, as the two of them made their way to the bridge. The corridors were deserted and Clint suddenly found himself wishing he had his bow on them.

The two of them entered the bridge and stopped suddenly, staring wide eyed around them.

'Um…' Tony said, staring at the still running computer screens and the still warm cups of coffee. 'Where's everyone gone?'

**XxXxXxX**

'It wasn't until later when we checked the camera feed that we saw what had happened,' Tony told Charlotte. 'Everyone collapsed then the gas was sucked back up into the vents and they all kind of… disappeared, like on Star Trek.'

Charlotte shivered. 'That sounds well creepy,' she said.

Tony nodded. 'It was,' he agreed. 'We've been trying to track everyone down for over a month, so far we've only found Natasha, Captain America is still missing.'

'What about the Hulk? Or his alter ego?' Charlotte asked.

'We'd hoped that because he was off the ship he wouldn't have been affected,' Tony said. 'Unfortunately that wasn't the case and he too has vanished.'

'But if it wasn't the gas, that must mean someone's taken him,' Charlotte said.

Tony nodded. 'It's not a nice thought,' he agreed. 'But none of this explains how Natasha got that head injury.'

Charlotte flicked through Natasha's notes. 'It was a road traffic collision,' she said. 'She was hit by a car, the driver said she "suddenly appeared out of nowhere" and he didn't have enough time to brake.'

Tony frowned. 'So they were taken from the helicarrier and deposited on the ground, but _why?_'

Charlotte shrugged. 'Don't look at me,' she said. 'I'm just her nurse.'

'Don't say that!' Tony said, staring at her. 'You're more than that, you've been taken care of her for this past month, you look after people, that says a lot about you. I've always thought it takes a very special kind of person to be a nurse.'

Charlotte beamed at the praise. 'Maybe someone wanted to get them off the helicarrier,' she theorised. 'To steal data?'

Tony shook his head. 'Nothing was reported as stolen, we couldn't find any sign of a forced entry either, plus I think someone would have noticed if a boat suddenly came towards us.

'How did the gas get on board?' Charlotte said.

Tony shrugged. 'We're still trying to figure that one out,' he said.

'Oh! I have an idea!' Charlotte said excitedly. 'You said they all disappeared, like a beam or something, right?'

Tony nodded.

'Well, maybe that same technology, the transportation beam thing, is how the gas got on board.'

Tony grinned. 'See, I told you you were special,' he said. 'And that should mean that if I can determine when and where the gas was administered, I may be able to track it back to its source.'

Charlotte paused. 'You don't think… it's _him, _do you?'

'Loki?' Tony said. He shook his head. 'No, Loki is with Thor on Asgard, whatever happened, it's of Earth origin.

'_Tony!' _Clint said in his ear. _'Thor's back from Asgard.'_

'Okay, I'll come back,' Tony said. 'Sorry, Charlotte, gotta go, our friendly neighbourhood Norse God has reappeared.'

'Say hi from me,' Charlotte said.

'Will do,' Tony promised. 'And keep an eye on Natasha for me.'

He grabbed her hand and pulled out a pen, scribbling a number down on it.

'That's my phone number,' he said. 'If anything happens, and I mean _anything, _call me.'

'You got it,' Charlotte said, beaming with pride and excitement.

'I'll see you later,' Tony said, bowing his head to her and disappearing out into the corridor.

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_Please review!_


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